Ophthalmic lenses, such as spectacles, contact lenses and intraocular lenses, may be configured to provide both spherical and cylinder power. The cylinder power of a lens is used to correct the rotational asymmetric aberration of astigmatism of the cornea or eye, since astigmatism cannot be corrected by adjusting the spherical power of the lens alone. Lenses that are configured to correct astigmatism are commonly referred to as toric lenses. As used herein, a toric lens is characterized by a base spherical power (which may be positive, negative, or zero) and a cylinder power that is added to the base spherical power of the lens for correcting astigmatism of the eye.
Toric lenses typically have at least one surface that can be described by an asymmetric toric shape having two different curvature values in two orthogonal axes, wherein the toric lens is characterized by a “low power meridian” with a constant power equal to the base spherical power and an orthogonal “high power meridian” with a constant power equal to the base spherical power plus the cylinder power of the lens. Intraocular lenses, which are used to replace or supplement the natural lens of an eye, may also be configured to have a cylinder power for reducing or correcting astigmatism of the cornea or eye.
Existing toric lenses are designed to correct astigmatic effects by providing maximum cylindrical power that precisely matches the cylinder axis. Haptics are used to anchor an intraocular lens to maintain the lenses at a desired orientation once implanted in the eye. However, existing toric lenses themselves are not designed to account for misalignment of the lens that may occur during surgical implantation of the lens in the eye or to account for unintended post-surgical movement of the lens in the eye.
One type of toric lens design includes angularly-varying phase members that extend depth of focus features to extend the tolerance band of an intended correction meridian. However, lens design that extends the astigmatism tolerance of a toric IOL are not commonplace.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have more intraocular lens designs that are tolerant to misalignments.